Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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The town on June 15 received a “Notice of Deficit and Injury” filed on behalf of a local woman who suffered a “broken nose, severe head and facial contusions, abrasions, hematoma, bleeding in her eye [and] knee injury” because of a poorly maintained walkway out front of New Canaan High School. According to the notice—filed on behalf of a Parting Brook Road woman by Ridgefield-based Reilly Law Firm— a “protruding, bent, defective and uneven metal trim piece at the border of a paved walkway and grass outside the main entrance” amounts to a “defective sidewalk” that at about 6:45 p.m. on April 27 caused the woman to suffer “personal injuries,” presumably by falling down. The notice said the metal trim piece is located where red-colored paving stones meet grass, about 65 feet west of the building’s glass doors. ***

Police cited a 23-year-old Queens, N.Y. man for possession of less than .5 ounces of marijuana after an officer working at the main entrance to Waveny on South Avenue spotted him walking into the park for the fireworks on Tuesday with a joint tucked behind his ear. ***

The Animal Control section of the New Canaan Police Department at about 10:15 a.m. on June 28 responded to the New Canaan YMCA on a report that five or six sparrows were trapped inside the South Avenue facility’s new pool area.

Around Town

‘There’s Not Enough Being Done’: New Canaan Scout, 15, Oversees Cleaning of Veterans’ Gravestones at Lakeview Cemetery

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Elliott Ruoff, a 15-year-old soon-to-be sophomore at New Canaan High School, wanted to do something special for veterans for his Eagle Scout project. Standing near one veteran’s marker on a recent, hot and humid morning at Lakeview Cemetery, Ruoff gave his reasons for taking on the cleaning all of the veterans’ gravestones there. “There’s not enough being done to help them, in my opinion,” Ruoff said. “One of the main problems with this is that when we’re trying to find the stones, we can never find them because some of them are just so dirty that they’re unreadable.”

There are about 900 veterans buried in Lakeview Cemetery, according to Ruoff. Troop 70, the Boy Scouts troop to which he belongs, is responsible for marking those veterans’ stones with U.S. flags for Memorial Day and wreaths for Christmas every year.

News

New Canaan Police Chief: Beware of Phony Solicitations for Veterans as Memorial Day Approaches

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On May 30, Memorial Day, we honor those veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives for our great country. Memorial Day honors their service and sacrifice. Nearly 850 Veterans are buried in Lakeview Cemetery. As Memorial Day approaches, it’s a good time to remind the good and patriotic citizens of New Canaan to be aware of phony organizations who “solicit” on behalf of Veterans. Recently, Peter Langenus, the Commander of New Canaan’s Veterans of Foreign War Post 653 received a telephone call from a shopper who had been approached for a money donation in front of the Food Emporium.

Animal 411

Fox Disrupts New Canaan Woman’s Burial Site for Roadkill

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Coming home from church on a Sunday morning three weeks ago, Eloise Killefer spotted a fox outside the gate of her house. “It was the most beautiful fox I had ever seen, and the only fox I had ever seen,” Killeffer said. The sighting didn’t register beyond that—not at first. A self-described animal lover, Killeffer has taken it upon herself to give roadkill a proper burial in the backyard of her house on the corner of Main and Oak Streets. “I have this thing about giving a proper burial to all of God’s little critters, I just think it is the right thing to do,” Killeffer said.

Around Town

After 34 Years, Bo Hickey To Retire As Lakeview Cemetery Superintendent

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Bo Hickey has connected with generations of locals through the different hats he’s worn in New Canaan, perhaps most visibly as a coach in the high school football program and of the varsity hockey team—seeing many of the town’s best athletes achieve excellence in some of their most memorable, dramatic moments. Yet for many local families, Hickey may have played his most important role during their most difficult times, in his work since August of 1981 as superintendent of the pond-dotted, green and rolling Lakeview Cemetery. “My job is to make sure, first of all, that the grounds are in decent order, selling property, interring people, and just the upkeep of the cemetery itself,” Hickey said Monday afternoon from the small office at 352 Main St., just over the wooden bridge that spans the Fivemile River inside the cemetery’s gates. “There is 40 acres here. So it’s a large piece of property.”

And a large responsibility.